Robert Franklin

Another big surprise – divorce harms children
2009-01-22 at 4:07 pm · Filed under blog
Here’s a shocker. Divorce harms kids.

The latest evidence is reported here (The Australian, 12/8/08).

It reports on an international study detailed in the Journal Comparative Sociology.

The study looked at educational outcomes for over 30,000 Australians and found that children lose up to a year of school, incident to divorce.

The study concludes,
"Divorce's impact on children's education is, we suggest, in a large part a consequence of the disruption, the loss of parental control and the difficulties that a sole parent or a step-parent faces in raising children - all of which reduces children's prospects for success in school."

This is just the latest evidence we have to support the notion that our 30 + -year experiment with no-fault divorce has failed. For decades, the concept of no-fault divorce was vigorously promoted by, among others, the National Association of Women Lawyers.

The theory was that adults shouldn’t be trapped in a relationship that benefitted neither party. Into the bargain, the no-fault divorce crowd told us that children would be better off too if they weren’t exposed to constantly bickering parents.

By 1983, every state but two had adopted no-fault divorce laws and, to no one’s surprise, the divorce rate soared.

Throughout the 1970s and early 80s, the divorce rate increased reaching over 40%. But now, thanks mostly to people’s actual experiences as well as the small avalanche of studies like the one reported on by The Australian, divorce rates are declining.

(P. This is a gross assumption. And quite likely incorrect. The 'small avalanche' of studies has been studiously ignored or rubbished. 'Actual experience' of what, isn't outlined. I suggest that the 'decline' is because far fewer couples are marrying, prefering, lazily and immorally to 'Live in Sin, and as men remove themselves from the dangers of no-fault divorce , and as a consequence the number of married couples have declined. )

No-fault divorce laws should be modified, but more important is public education about the harmful effects of divorce on children. They are many and varied. Children suffer from divorce and when children suffer, society suffers too.

(P. No-fault divorce should not be 'modified' -Franklin does not suggest how - it should be Eradicated and all the scum who run the anti-Family Courts should be rounded up and pegged out in the Simpson Desert where they can pray for friggin' rain.

Further, the liklihood of the Government initiating 'Public Education' about the truth of divorce is as much as the survival of a polythene dog in hell. It is the Government - of both murky stripes - that has pushed divorce as a panacea for the past 40 friggin' years. They are unlikly to have a sudden change of heart and there is no way they will admit to getting it wrong)